Likewise, in meditation, you can use awareness in different ways. To begin
with, you can increase your powers of awareness by developing concentration
on a particular object. (focus your awareness)
Some people have an innate ability to concentrate, but most of us need to
practice to develop it. Buddhists like to compare the mind to a monkey —
constantly chattering and hopping about from branch to branch, topic to
topic. Did you ever notice that most of the time, you have scant control over
the whims and vacillations of your monkey mind, which may space out one
moment and obsess the next? When you meditate, you calm your monkey
mind by making it one-pointed rather than scattered and distracted.
Many spiritual traditions teach their students concentration as the primary
meditation practice. Just keep focusing your mind on the mantra or the
symbol or the visualization, they advise, and eventually you will attain what
is called absorption, or samadhi.
In absorption, the sense of being a separate “me” disappears, and only the
object of your attention remains. Followed to its natural conclusion, the practice
of concentration can lead to an experience of union with the object of
your meditation. If you’re a sports enthusiast, this object could be your
tennis racket or your golf club; if you’re an aspiring mystic, the object could
be God or being or the absolute.
Opening to receptive awareness
The great sages of China say that all things comprise the constant interplay
of yin and yang — the feminine and masculine forces of the universe. Well, if
concentration is the yang of meditation (focused, powerful, penetrating),
then receptive awareness is the yin (open, expansive, welcoming).
Where concentration disciplines, stabilizes, and grounds the mind, receptive
awareness loosens and extends the mind’s boundaries and creates more interior
space, enabling you to familiarize yourself with the mind’s contents.
Where concentration blocks extra stimuli as distractions to the focus at
Chapter 1: What Meditation Is — and Isn’t 21
hand, receptive awareness embraces and assimilates every experience that
presents itself.
Most meditations involve the interplay of concentration and receptive awareness,
although some more-advanced techniques teach the practice of receptive
awareness alone. Just be open and aware and welcome to whatever
arises, they teach, and ultimately you will be “taken by truth.” Followed to its
conclusion, receptive awareness guides you in shifting your identity from
your thoughts, emotions, and the stories your mind tells you to your true
identity, which is being itself. (For more on thoughts, emotions, and stories,
see Chapter 5.)
Of course, if you don’t know how to work with attention, these instructions
are impossible to follow. That’s why most traditions prescribe practicing concentration
first. Concentration, by quieting and grounding the mind (enough
so that it can open without being swept away by a deluge of irrelevant feelings
and thoughts), provides a solid foundation on which the practice of meditation
can flourish.
Mindfulness: Meditation as a way of life
Although I provide a variety of different techniques
for your enjoyment and exploration, this
book offers as its primary approach what the
Buddhists call mindfulness — ongoing attention
to whatever arises moment to moment.
Based on my years of experience and training,
I’ve found that mindfulness, which blends concentration
and receptive awareness, is one of
the simplest techniques for beginners to learn
and also one of the most readily adaptable to
the busy schedules most of us face. After all, if
you’re like me, you’re primarily concerned with
living a more harmonious, loving, stress-free
life, not lifting off into some disembodied spiritual
realm divorced from the people and places
you love.
In fact, the beauty, belonging, and love you seek
are available right here and now — you only
need to clear your mind and open your eyes,
which is precisely what the practice of mindfulness
is intended to teach! When you pay attention
to your experience from moment to
moment, you keep waking up from the daydreams
and worries your mind fabricates and
returning to the clarity, precision, and simplicity
of the present, where life actually takes place.
The great thing about mindfulness is that you
don’t have to limit your practice to certain
places and times — you can practice waking up
and paying attention wherever you happen to
be, at any time of the day or night.
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